--- Craig <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Kurzweil already postulated this a while ago. > Although I don't agree with his conclusions. He says > that if any society were to attain the "singularity" > then their presence would already be felt, and since > we can feel no presence then essentially this proves > that humans are the only sentient life forms in > EXISTENCE. I wholeheartedly disagree with Kurzweil's > reasoning in this matter, since he takes such a > human perspective in regards to imagining an alien > technology. I think his stance is very presumptuous > on his part. For instance he assumes that we haven't > felt their presence merely because there isn't > anything to detect. When in fact he never considered > that human senses or sciences may not be acute > enough to detect them.
Human senses, while crude, are good enough to detect a wholesale rearrangement of a large majority of the matter in the solar system. > He also assumes that these > creatures would conveinently leave their alien > presence where ever they stepped foot, although even > we humans attempt to cover our presence when > disturbing the nesting grounds of rare animals. Tell that to the dodos. I would seriously be delighted if you could construct a coherent moral system under which humans are not interfered with at all, in any way that is detectable using 2007-era technology, as it would be a major advance towards FAI. > Also > the concept of the singularity > is thought of in human terms, in our solar system, > with our prejudices. For instance other galaxies are > known to be denser in mass than ours, who knows what > kind of exotic conditions a lifeform could develop > under? There has been a grand total of one realistic theory for how an intelligent lifeform can develop naturally: evolution by mutation and natural selection. Evolution does not tend to produce creatures that elaborately scheme to keep other creatures from noticing them. How much effort have we made to keep the dogs from noticing our presence? And vice-versa? > Singularity in human terms appears to mean > having computing power to calculate well... > everything. I know of nobody that has defined it as such. Please explain your idea of what the Singularity is. > But the real question is what is > "everything" to us? Put it into terms of a tribesman > meeting a city dweller, both are looking for > "wealth" but they are different things to the city > dweller and tribesman. The city man would probably > want gold or currency, whereas the tribesman sees > wealth as livestock or medicinal herbs. Both are > valuable, but in different ways to the two cultures. Earth has both. In fact, Earth contains each and every one of the ninety-two-odd elements that compose matter. And if the aliens value energy, then there's a huge source right next to us called the Sun (and all the other stars). Even aliens that value something as abstract as information still require a computing infrastructure, which in turn requires matter and energy. > Meeting a creature from this denser plane we could > find out that the common elements of the period > table are used in much different ratios than here on > Earth. Which means that the Earth would be a huge gold mine, since some rare elements in the multiverse would be common on Earth. > This could affect their whole rationale for > forming a singularity, in other words their concept > of "everything" and "universe" > itself may consist of layers of dimensions rather > than just controlling what they see - whatever that > may be. What, exactly, do you mean by "layers of dimensions"? - Tom > ----- Original Message ---- > From: Eric B. Ramsay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: singularity@v2.listbox.com > Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 9:44:04 PM > Subject: [singularity] Implications of an already > existing singularity. > > > I am very enthusiatic over the idea of humans > creating a singularity and hope myself to contribute > meaningfully to this effort down the road. In the > same way that I believe it should be possible to > have an AGI, I also believe that there may very well > be other intelligent life out there in the universe. > Given the current estimated age of the universe, > other intelligent races may be millions (if not > billions) of years ahead of us technically. If that > is so and if an AGI singularity is possible, it > stands to reason that such a thing would already > have been created. If we go with the strongest > definition of what the term "singularity" implies, > then is the universe big enough for two? > Eric B. Ramsay > > > This list is sponsored by AGIRI: > http://www.agiri.org/email > To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: > http://v2.listbox.com/member/?list_id=11983 > > ----- > This list is sponsored by AGIRI: > http://www.agiri.org/email > To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: > http://v2.listbox.com/member/?list_id=11983 > ____________________________________________________________________________________ Get your own web address. Have a HUGE year through Yahoo! Small Business. http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/domains/?p=BESTDEAL ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?list_id=11983
